The story of Daria Starkova. The problem of the fourth stage. Daria Starikova, who complained to the president about poor medicine, died. What awaits Assange now?
Ecuadorian authorities have denied Julian Assange asylum at the London embassy. The founder of WikiLeaks was detained by British police, and this has already been called the biggest betrayal in the history of Ecuador. Why are they taking revenge on Assange and what awaits him?
Australian programmer and journalist Julian Assange became widely known after the website WikiLeaks, which he founded, published secret documents from the US State Department in 2010, as well as materials related to military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But it was quite difficult to find out who the police, supporting by the arms, were leading out of the building. Assange had grown a beard and looked nothing like the energetic man he had previously appeared in photographs.
According to Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno, Assange was denied asylum due to his repeated violations of international conventions.
He is expected to remain in custody at a central London police station until he appears at Westminster Magistrates' Court.
Why is the President of Ecuador accused of treason?
Former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa called the current government's decision the biggest betrayal in the country's history. “What he (Moreno - editor’s note) did is a crime that humanity will never forget,” Correa said.
London, on the contrary, thanked Moreno. The British Foreign Office believes that justice has triumphed. The representative of the Russian diplomatic department, Maria Zakharova, has a different opinion. “The hand of “democracy” is squeezing the throat of freedom,” she noted. The Kremlin expressed hope that the rights of the arrested person will be respected.
Ecuador sheltered Assange because ex-president He held center-left views, criticized US policy and welcomed the publication by WikiLeaks of secret documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Even before the Internet activist needed asylum, he managed to personally meet Correa: he interviewed him for the Russia Today channel.
However, in 2017, the government in Ecuador changed, and the country set a course towards rapprochement with the United States. New President called Assange “a stone in his shoe” and immediately made it clear that his stay on the embassy premises would not be prolonged.
According to Correa, the moment of truth came at the end of June last year, when US Vice President Michael Pence arrived in Ecuador for a visit. Then everything was decided. “You have no doubt: Lenin is simply a hypocrite. He has already agreed with the Americans on the fate of Assange. And now he is trying to make us swallow the pill, saying that Ecuador is supposedly continuing the dialogue,” Correa said in an interview with the Russia Today channel.
How Assange made new enemies
The day before his arrest, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Kristin Hrafnsson said that Assange was under total surveillance. “WikiLeaks uncovered a large-scale espionage operation against Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy,” he noted. According to him, cameras and voice recorders were placed around Assange, and the information received was transferred to the Donald Trump administration.
Hrafnsson clarified that Assange was going to be expelled from the embassy a week earlier. This did not happen only because WikiLeaks published this information. A high-ranking source told the portal about the plans of the Ecuadorian authorities, but the head of the Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry, Jose Valencia, denied the rumors.
Assange's expulsion was preceded by corruption scandal around Moreno. In February, WikiLeaks published a package of INA Papers, which traced the operations of the offshore company INA Investment, founded by the brother of the Ecuadorian leader. Quito said it was a conspiracy between Assange and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and former Ecuadorian leader Rafael Correa to overthrow Moreno.
In early April, Moreno complained about Assange's behavior at Ecuador's London mission. “We must protect the life of Mr. Assange, but he has already crossed all boundaries in terms of violating the agreement that we came to with him,” the president said. “This does not mean that he cannot speak freely, but he cannot lie and hack.” ". At the same time, back in February last year it became known that Assange at the embassy was deprived of the opportunity to interact with outside world, in particular, his Internet access was cut off.
Why Sweden stopped its prosecution of Assange
At the end of last year, Western media, citing sources, reported that Assange would be charged in the United States. This was never officially confirmed, but it was because of Washington’s position that Assange had to take refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy six years ago.
In May 2017, Sweden stopped investigating two rape cases in which the portal’s founder was accused. Assange demanded compensation from the country's government for legal costs in the amount of 900 thousand euros.
Earlier, in 2015, Swedish prosecutors also dropped three charges against him due to the expiration of the statute of limitations.
Where did the investigation into the rape case lead?
Assange arrived in Sweden in the summer of 2010, hoping to receive protection from American authorities. But he was investigated for rape. In November 2010, a warrant was issued for his arrest in Stockholm, and Assange was put on the international wanted list. He was detained in London, but was soon released on bail of 240 thousand pounds.
In February 2011, a British court decided to extradite Assange to Sweden, after which a number of successful appeals followed for the WikiLeaks founder.
British authorities placed him under house arrest before deciding whether to extradite him to Sweden. Breaking his promise to the authorities, Assange asked for asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy, which was granted to him. Since then, the UK has had its own claims against the WikiLeaks founder.
What awaits Assange now?
The man was re-arrested on a US extradition request for publishing classified documents, police said. At the same time, Deputy Head of the British Foreign Ministry Alan Duncan said that Assange would not be sent to the United States if he faced the death penalty there.
In the UK, Assange is likely to appear in court on the afternoon of April 11. This is stated on the WikiLeaks Twitter page. British authorities are likely to seek a maximum sentence of 12 months, the man's mother said, citing his lawyer.
At the same time, Swedish prosecutors are considering reopening the rape investigation. Attorney Elizabeth Massey Fritz, who represented the victim, will seek this.
Daria Starikova, a 24-year-old resident of the city of Apatity with stage 4 oncology, addressed the President of the Russian Federation during the “Direct Line”, in short phrase diagnosed our healthcare system: “We want to live, not survive.” Her story, alas, is typical and tragically highlights the systemic problems of today's Russian medicine. Which ones exactly, Ogonyok found out.
Natalia Nekhlebova
If Dasha had not been caught on camera during “Direct Line” with Vladimir Putin, she could easily have been called a collective image of a not-so-prosperous girl from a small Russian town. Orphan - mother died early (father is unknown), raised by older brother. She graduated from 9th grade, at the age of 18 she gave birth to a daughter, the child’s father refused to take part in his fate. Dasha worked as a bus conductor, then as a salesperson, her aunt helped with her daughter - life is no worse, but clearly no better than most. The context is fitting: the regional center of Apatity next to the world's largest deposit of the mineral of the same name (apatite - a raw material for the production of phosphate fertilizers), the Belaya River, shabby five-story buildings, Lenin Square, a processing plant, the Arctic, hills...
Disease history
One day the girl had a back pain. Then the pain began to recur. I made an appointment with the doctor. 55 thousand people live in Apatity. And like in the vast majority of small towns, the hospital has been optimized here since 2013. The departments of gynecology, surgery, traumatology, cardiology, and the maternity hospital were closed. All that remained was the clinic and the antenatal clinic. “We fought for this hospital as best we could,” says Dasha’s friend Anna Tikhokhod, “we wrote letters to the Ministry of Health. There was no point.” There are queues at the clinic. Crowds of elderly people stand behind coupons.
Daria was diagnosed with osteochondrosis. For further examination we were sent to a hospital in Kirovsk (20 km from Apatity). They confirmed it, prescribed massages and ointments. When bleeding began after six months of treatment, the girl was taken to regional hospital to Murmansk (five hours from Apatity). There it turned out that she had stage 4 cancer. Dasha is 24 years old. How will events develop further? Even non-specialists are in the know: waiting for hospitalization, examinations, tests, obtaining medications...
“There are standards established by the state guarantee program that determine how long a cancer patient should expect help,” Nikolai Dronov, chairman of the executive committee of the “Movement Against Cancer,” tells Ogonyok, “but here they are often exceeded. From diagnosis to the start of treatment, it can take two months pass, and three. We had a case where a person waited for a year. People are fighting for every free pill, for every free hospitalization. Daria managed to speed things up by addressing the president live.
Her message was seen by the whole country: “Everything has been closed here. There is not enough narrow specialists, thanks to which it would be possible to diagnose people on time. They are sent to Murmansk for the necessary examinations. Ambulance, sometimes he doesn’t have time to deliver..." Immediately after the broadcast, Dasha burst into tears, and the regional authorities shuddered and showed miracles of activity.
Marina Kovtun, the head of the region, rushed to Apatity, promptly visited Aunt Dasha, promised to send her daughter Sonechka to a good summer camp, then received the population at the hospital and listened to complaints. A day later, the regional Minister of Health Valery Peretrukhin was already sitting in Apatity along with his deputies - they received people for two days. Then the baton of welcoming the population in the “exposed” city passed to the deputy head physician of the Murmansk Oncology Center. And also investigative committee opened a case of “medical negligence”, and the head doctor of the hospital in Kirovsk resigned. Who else is to blame?
But here important detail: even before submitting his resignation letter after this whole story, the chief doctor of the Kirov hospital (we remind you that he also serves Apatity) confirmed that he medical institution only 62 percent staffed with doctors. There is no regional oncologist in the states either: all tests and examinations are 200 km away, in Murmansk.
And one more piece of evidence for understanding the picture.
— More than half (60.9 percent) of health workers believe that their professional workload has increased in 2016 and the first quarter of 2017, and cite optimization as the reason for this medical organizations(77.5 percent), says the director of the Independent Monitoring Foundation to Ogonyok. medical services and protection of human health “Health” Eduard Gavrilov.— At the same time, the absolute majority (92.7 percent) of health workers believe that the increase in the professional load assigned to them negatively affects the quality of the medical care they provide.
The right is there. No money
Numbers
Free help for cancer patients - paper declaration. In fact, almost half of the regions of the Russian Federation are reducing the cost of medicines for them. This is the list of entities with the largest decrease in funding (%)
Sakhalin region 47.9
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug 47.9
Magadan region 39.0
Kalmykia 38.5
Saratov region 35.8
Kemerovo region. 33.2
Udmurtia 32.2
Ingushetia 29.7
Primorsky Krai 29.1
Tula region 27.8
Source: Research Institute of Healthcare Organization and Medical Management
No one responsible
“Incorrect diagnosis is not a mass phenomenon, but it cannot be called a rare exception,” says Nikolai Dronov. “In the conditions in which we have to work medical workers today, I would not make all the claims to the doctor who treated Daria. Questions should be asked to the Murmansk governor, his deputy for social issues, and the head of the health care organization department in the region. For example, where are the district oncologists in their region? They should organize the work of doctors of other specialties to identify the risk of cancer in district hospitals, in places. And this question can be asked in many subjects."
However, it is not only regional officials who need to be called to account. It's no secret that oncology is the most expensive branch of medicine. Colossal amounts of money are required. Tablets can cost from 500 thousand to 10 million rubles. And here the federal Ministry of Health washes its hands. Because legally he's not actually... responsible for helping cancer patients. The Federal Ministry of Health simply issued an order according to which all patients with oncology must be provided with free treatment. And the regions must do this. The directive is wonderful. But it’s paper. It does not contain recommendations on what to do if a region has money problems. But the majority have a deficit budget. And even treatment prescribed in federal hospitals can be canceled in the region for a trivial reason - because there are no funds for it.
Exemplary punishments will not change anything. We need a national systemic plan to combat oncological diseases
Instructions real life It is not regulated in any way, it simply exists - in fact. And one can only be surprised that in Ryazan, for example, there is no surgical department and the operations are performed by general surgeons in a regular hospital. It's like a dentist operating on a broken jaw.
Now let’s get back to the specific subject: why wasn’t Dasha from Apatity sent for examination to Murmansk? The reason may be this: “The more patients, the more expensive it is for the state,” says Nikolai Dronov. “And in a number of cases we are simply faced with the fact that the diagnosis is not specified. People are not sent for further examination. This has happened even in Moscow.”
The situation when you have to fight for treatment, which according to all instructions is due to citizens of the Russian Federation and should be free, is typical not only for oncology patients. According to the “Movement Against Cancer” and the “Union of Public Associations of Patients”, thousands of requests a year are received by the Federal Ministry of Health about the fact that the regions do not provide free treatment. The Federal Ministry of Health regularly responds: it sends complaints to regional departments. And the regions answer: there is no money. Patients also go to court (they usually sue the regional Ministry of Health), but even when they win the case, they hit a wall: there is no money... And so this bureaucratic gimmick continues with an inevitably tragic ending: departments point at each other until until the person dies. And there is no one to blame either.
“Exemplary punishments will not change anything,” says Dronov. “We need a national systemic plan to combat cancer. We have been writing about this to various authorities for several years now.” Apparently they will continue to write.
And Dasha was taken by a special plane of the Ministry of Emergency Situations to the Institute named after. Herzen in Moscow. According to her friend, she is cheerful and does not lose hope. There is no doubt that they will now do everything possible for her, and there is only one thing left: to wish her recovery.
But what can we wish for the people who remain to live in Apatity? That everyone will be returned to them necessary doctors, even after the scandal they no longer hope: “They’ll talk and forget,” they comment doomedly on social networks. And we’re not just talking about residents of one regional city. There are many such addresses in Russia, where thousands of people with “complex” diagnoses - oncology, HIV, Hunter syndrome, mucopolysaccharidosis - cannot wait for treatment or wait six months to see a specialist. What do you wish for them? Is there really no other way out than the one that Dasha Starikova fortunately had - to get to the microphone on the next “Direct Line” of the president?..
AdvertisingThe name of a young resident of Apatit, Daria Starikova, became known throughout the country in the summer of 2017. A girl throughout the country, during a “Direct Line” with Vladimir Putin, complained about the quality of medicine in the province and asked for help from the head of state in this matter. As it turned out, the girl was treated for osteochondrosis, but in fact she had cancer.
The day before it became known that despite all the efforts of the capital’s doctors, namely, Dasha ended up with them after direct communication with the president, it was not possible to defeat the last stage of cancer - the woman died on May 22 right in the hospital.
The authorities of Apatit, Murmansk region, promised to provide assistance to the girl’s family. In particular, she left behind a seven-year-old daughter. With the help of the city administration, the deceased's aunt was able to quickly arrange custody of the girl - they promised to take Dasha herself to last way worthy.
Daria Starikova - what is she known for?
Only the laziest in our country doesn’t know Dasha’s story. During a Direct Line with Vladimir Putin in 2017, the girl finally got through to the president and said that there was no medical care in her hometown - the old hospital was closed, and the new one was never completed. Everyone suffers from this local residents, and she found herself in a critical situation. The diagnosis of osteochondrosis made by doctors turned out to be stage 4 cancer. Daria Starikova said that residents of the city have to travel to the neighboring city of Kirovsk for treatment, since the hospital in Apatity was closed.
Vladimir Putin did not ignore the girl’s situation. The hospital in Kirovsk was simply bombarded with inspections and investigations, because the Investigative Committee took up the matter. Tens of thousands of people offered to help Daria with treatment, and the state also helped - a resident of Apatite was urgently invited to Moscow to undergo full examination and receiving free medical care.
Daria was treated in the department of gynecological oncology of the P. A. Herzen Moscow Oncology Institute. By the end of 2017, her condition had improved significantly. She had a major radical surgery to remove the tumor, as well as several courses of chemotherapy with combination drugs.
In December 2017, doctors sent the patient home to her daughter and other relatives so that she could meet New Year in the family. At the same time, the doctors warned that the treatment was not completed and would take many more months.
Daria admitted to journalists that she did not try for herself, since she considered time to be lost irrevocably, but for the residents of her city, who were left with the problem alone, there was practically no medical care in the city.
As it became known the day before, the slight improvement in Starikova’s condition was only an appearance - after the New Year, she returned to the hospital and continued treatment, but her efforts did not produce results. The cancer was too advanced, and therefore Daria had to live out her last months.
Is Daria Starikova herself to blame?
It cannot be said that the situation around Starikova’s story was quite controversial, because the Apatit doctors, who allegedly provided poor quality medical care, there were many defenders. Rumors spread on the Internet that the girl became very ill not because of an incorrect diagnosis, but because of lost time - she did not follow the doctors’ recommendations, for which she paid with her own health.
The head physician of the Kirov-Apatity Hospital, Yuri Shiryaev, a doctor with an excellent reputation, a former military medic, wrote a letter of resignation, believing that officials did not want to objectively understand this story, the portal site reports. The specialist and his defenders assured that the branch in Apatity was closed due to the fact that the building did not meet sanitary standards, and the new building was not completed due to the lack of budget funds. Residents were provided with high-quality care in a neighboring city, where the hospital was more decent and provided with the necessary equipment and specialists.
Also, contradictory emotions were caused by publications on the Internet, where “eyewitnesses” reported that Dasha was diagnosed back in 2014, but she ignored the doctors.
“It is important to note that “pre-cancer” was discovered in her by a private doctor in 2014, who strictly recommended that she be examined. But Starikova did not follow the advice of the gynecologist and for two years she never came to the hospital at all. This time she also did not go to the examination room. Why? Probably “because”... All sources agree on one thing - Dasha regularly ignored the recommendations... She herself appeared in the hospital later... in January 2017. Nose heavy bleeding and in critical condition. The doctors “pulled her out”, examined her and discovered the fourth stage of cancer, after which she was sent for “chemotherapy” to the oncology hospital.”
It can be summarized that tearjerker Starikova undoubtedly has several sides, like every medal. Perhaps the girl really did not follow the doctors’ recommendations, but her single example does not mean that “everyone is like that.” Many people in our country are indeed deprived of the opportunity to receive qualified assistance from specialists due to a basic lack of extra funds, and that is why they “do not follow doctors’ recommendations.”
If Dasha had not been caught on camera during “Direct Line” with Vladimir Putin, she could easily have been called a collective image of a not-so-prosperous girl from a small Russian town. Orphan - mother died early (father is unknown), raised by older brother. She graduated from 9th grade, at the age of 18 she gave birth to a daughter, the child’s father refused to take part in his fate. Dasha worked as a bus conductor, then as a salesperson, her aunt helped with her daughter - life was no worse, but clearly no better than most. The context is fitting: the regional center of Apatity next to the world's largest deposit of the mineral of the same name (apatite - a raw material for the production of phosphate fertilizers), the Belaya River, shabby five-story buildings, Lenin Square, a processing plant, the Arctic, hills...
Disease history
One day the girl had a back pain. Then the pain began to recur. I made an appointment with the doctor. 55 thousand people live in Apatity. And like in the vast majority of small towns, the hospital has been optimized here since 2013. The departments of gynecology, surgery, traumatology, cardiology, and the maternity hospital were closed. All that remained was the clinic and the antenatal clinic. “We fought for this hospital as best we could,” says Dasha’s friend Anna Tikhokhod, “we wrote letters to the Ministry of Health. There’s no point.” There are queues at the clinic. Crowds of elderly people stand behind coupons.
Daria was diagnosed with osteochondrosis. For further examination we were sent to a hospital in Kirovsk (20 km from Apatity). They confirmed it, prescribed massages and ointments. When bleeding began after six months of treatment, the girl was taken to a regional hospital in Murmansk (five hours from Apatity). There it turned out that she had stage 4 cancer. Dasha is 24 years old. How will events develop further? Even non-specialists are in the know: waiting for hospitalization, examinations, tests, obtaining medications...
“There are standards established by the state guarantee program that determine how much help a cancer patient should expect,” Nikolai Dronov, chairman of the executive committee of the “Movement Against Cancer,” tells Ogonyok, “but here they are often exceeded. From diagnosis to the start of treatment, it can take two or three months. We had a case where a person waited a year. The fight is for every free pill, for every free hospitalization. People are seeking proper treatment through the courts.” Daria managed to speed things up by addressing the president live.
Her message was seen by the whole country: “Everything has been closed here. There are not enough specialized specialists, thanks to whom it would be possible to diagnose people in a timely manner. They are sent to Murmansk for the necessary examinations. Sometimes the ambulance doesn’t have time to deliver…” Immediately after the broadcast, Dasha burst into tears, and the regional authorities shuddered and showed miracles of activity.
Marina Kovtun, the head of the region, rushed to Apatity, quickly visited Aunt Dasha, promised to send her daughter Sonechka to a good summer camp, then received the population at the hospital and listened to complaints. A day later, the regional Minister of Health Valery Peretrukhin was already sitting in Apatity along with his deputies - they received people for two days. Then the baton of welcoming the population in the “exposed” city passed to the deputy head physician of the Murmansk Oncology Center. And the Investigative Committee opened a case of “medical negligence,” and the head doctor of the hospital in Kirovsk resigned. Who else is to blame?
But here’s an important detail: even before submitting his resignation after this whole story, the chief doctor of the Kirov hospital (we remind you that he also serves Apatity) confirmed that his medical institution is only 62 percent staffed with doctors. There is no regional oncologist in the states: all tests and examinations are 200 km away, in Murmansk.
And one more evidence - to understand the picture.
More than half (60.9 percent) of medical workers believe that their professional workload has increased in 2016 and the first quarter of 2017, and the reason for this is the optimization of medical organizations (77.5 percent), the director of the Foundation for Independent Monitoring of Medical Services tells Ogonyok. and protection of human health “Health” Eduard Gavrilov.- At the same time, the absolute majority (92.7 percent) of health workers believe that the increase in the professional workload assigned to them negatively affects the quality of the medical care they provide.
The right is there. No money
Numbers
Free help for cancer patients - paper declaration. In fact, almost half of the regions of the Russian Federation are reducing the cost of medicines for them. This is the list of entities with the largest decrease in funding (%)
Sakhalin region 47.9
Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug 47.9
Magadan region 39.0
Kalmykia 38.5
Saratov region 35.8
Kemerovo region. 33.2
Udmurtia 32.2
Ingushetia 29.7
Primorsky Krai 29.1
Tula region 27.8
Source: Research Institute of Healthcare Organization and Medical Management
No one responsible
“Incorrect diagnosis is not a mass phenomenon, but it cannot be called a rare exception either,” says Nikolai Dronov. “In the conditions in which medical workers have to work today, I would not make all the claims to the doctor who treated Daria. Questions should be asked to the Murmansk governor, his deputy for social issues, and the head of the health care organization department in the region. For example, where are the district oncologists in their region? They must organize the work of doctors of other specialties to identify the risk of oncology in district hospitals and locally. And this question can be asked in many subjects.”
However, it is not only regional officials who need to be called to account. It's no secret that oncology is the most expensive branch of medicine. Colossal amounts of money are required. Tablets can cost from 500 thousand to 10 million rubles. And here the federal Ministry of Health washes its hands. Because legally, he's not actually... responsible for helping cancer patients. The Federal Ministry of Health simply issued an order according to which all patients with oncology must be provided with free treatment. And the regions must do this. The directive is wonderful. But it's paper. It does not contain recommendations on what to do if a region has money problems. But the majority have a deficit budget. And even treatment prescribed in federal hospitals can be canceled in the region for a trivial reason - because there are no funds for it.
Exemplary punishments will not change anything. We need a national systemic plan to combat cancer
Real life is not regulated in any way by instructions, it simply is - in fact. And one can only be surprised that in Ryazan, for example, there is no surgical department in the oncology clinic and operations are performed by general surgeons in a regular hospital. It's like a dentist operating on a broken jaw.
Now let’s get back to the specific subject: why wasn’t Dasha from Apatity sent for examination to Murmansk? The reason may be this: “The more patients, the more expensive it is for the state,” says Nikolai Dronov. “And in some cases we are simply faced with the fact that the diagnosis is not specified. People are not sent for further examination. This happened even in Moscow.”
The situation when you have to fight for treatment, which according to all instructions is due to citizens of the Russian Federation and should be free, is typical not only for oncology patients. According to the “Movement Against Cancer” and the “Union of Public Associations of Patients”, thousands of requests a year are received by the Federal Ministry of Health that the regions do not provide free treatment. The Federal Ministry of Health regularly responds: it sends complaints to regional departments. And the regions answer: there is no money. Patients also go to court (they usually sue the regional Ministry of Health), but even when they win the case, they hit a wall: there is no money... And so this bureaucratic gimmick continues with an inevitably tragic ending: departments point at each other until a person doesn't die. And there is no one to blame either.
“Exemplary punishments will not change anything,” says Dronov. “We need a national systematic plan to combat cancer. We have been writing about this to various authorities for several years now.” Apparently they will continue to write.
...And Dasha was taken by a special plane of the Ministry of Emergency Situations to the Institute named after. Herzen in Moscow. According to her friend, she is cheerful and does not lose hope. There is no doubt that they will now do everything possible for her, and there is only one thing left: to wish her recovery.
But what can we wish for the people who remain to live in Apatity? Even after the scandal, they no longer hope that all the necessary doctors will be returned to them: “They’ll talk and forget,” they comment doomedly on social networks. And we’re not just talking about residents of one regional city. There are many such addresses in Russia, where thousands of people with “complex” diagnoses - oncology, HIV, Hunter syndrome, mucopolysaccharidosis - cannot wait for treatment or wait six months to see a specialist. What do you wish for them? Is there really no other way out other than the one that Dasha Starikova luckily had - to get to the microphone on the next “Direct Line” of the president?..
A briefing was held at the Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Oncology named after P. A. Herzen, at which the patient and the doctor talked about how the treatment was carried out Photo: Andrey MINAEV
“MIRACLES STILL HAPPEN”
“I want to thank the wizard who gave me a second life and hope for the future,” Dasha smiles, looking at oncologist Andrei Kaprin. - Miracles still happen.
On Tuesday morning, a briefing was held at the Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Oncology named after P. A. Herzen, at which the patient and the doctor talked about how the treatment was carried out and what was achieved. The doctor operated on Dasha medical sciences, Honored Doctor of the Russian Federation, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, head of the National Medical Research Center for Radiology of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (the Center includes the Herzen Institute), oncologist surgeon Andrey Kaprin.
Now I feel just great compared to the state in which I arrived here for six months,” says Dasha. - My thoughts are completely different, I can look into the future and make plans. IN this moment I plan to go to New Year holidays home. I want to spend time with my family, my beloved 6-year-old daughter Sonya. Then I will return and continue treatment.
A cancer patient from Apatity who turned to Putin will celebrate the New Year at home with her family
HOW WE WERE TREATED
This summer, 24-year-old Dasha, who reached the President on the Direct Line, in serious condition brought to the Institute. Herzen with a gynecological oncological diagnosis. It seemed that the chances of survival were slim.
The tumor was large, and a major operation was required, which took more than 4.5 hours,” says Professor Kaprin. - Before and after the operation there were courses of chemotherapy, first to reduce the tumor, and then to consolidate the success after its removal. We used both imported drugs and Russian generic drugs.
In a few months, Dasha will undergo reconstructive surgery (to restore the removed tissue. - Author), which will be much easier than the first, since the tumor is no longer there. Then rehabilitation and regular monitoring will begin. According to international standards, patients of this profile come for examination once every three months in the first year, then once every six months for 3 years, and once a year, starting from the 4th year.
The most important and inspiring news: as shown by a recent control PET study (positron emission tomography, the most reliable diagnostic method today. - Author), there is no tumor or metastases in the girl’s body.
Dasha’s patience, courage and her trust in us were of great importance - the patient’s faith in doctors makes an important contribution to the victory over the disease,” emphasizes Dr. Kaprin.
WHO WAS PART OF THE “RESCUE TEAM”
As the professor said, in general, a large team of specialists from different fields was involved in the diagnosis and treatment of Dasha Starikova.
There is a basic oncology law, according to which the fate of a patient’s treatment should be decided by at least three, but more often than not, four people,” explains Andrey Kaprin. The rescue team includes:
A morphologist, that is, a doctor who determines the type of tumor: he says what kind of tumor the patient has and how susceptible it is to this or that type of pre- or postoperative treatment how she will respond to radiological treatment;
Clinical pharmacist (clinical oncologist) - decides on chemotherapy;
Radiation therapist - determines whether it will be needed radiation therapy and what type.
We also consulted remotely with colleagues from abroad,” continues Kaprin. - Now this is not uncommon; we deal with about 12 - 15 of the most complex patients a year in this way. In Dasha’s case, our colleagues from South Korea, Gratz (Austria). Experts from the Institute, which heads Academician Gennady Tikhonovich Sukhikh(National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology named after Academician V.I. Kulakov. - Author), our famous chemotherapists, including Vasily Ivanovich Borisov, chief chemotherapist of the Russian Ministry of Health.
After the operation, specialists from the Institute of Nutrition became involved because Dasha had critically low body weight. Now the girl has gained 5 kg. Clinical psychologists from the Institute also helped. Serbsky - they mentally prepared the patient for the operation and relieved her of stress in the future.
ASKING QUESTION
What are the chances for patients who have not reached the president?
Considering the 4th stage of cancer that Dasha Starikova was admitted with, her salvation looks like a real miracle. But Professor Kaprin does not consider this case to be anything extraordinary: “Every year I myself operate on about 25 patients with this diagnosis, and about 100 - 120 patients in similar condition get successful treatment in our Radiology Center."
And yet Daria was saved by a large team the best specialists- What are the chances for ordinary patients who do not call the President on the Direct Line?
We are open and work according to federal quotas - patients come to us from all regions of Russia,” says Andrey Kaprin, head of the Radiology Center. - In severe cases, like Dasha’s, we take patients quickly, because we understand that there are few places that can help them - after all, federal, national centers They have a larger arsenal of methods and are designed specifically for complex cases, in order to then replicate the treatment experience throughout the country.
At the same time, we often visit the regions and see that the situation is changing. Now there are regions that are very well equipped with equipment and specialists, from where fewer and fewer severe patients are coming to us - people can be successfully treated locally. In addition, a law on telemedicine was recently passed; Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova is constantly encouraging us to conduct teleconsultations. For two years now, we have been organizing teleconferences with the regions twice a week, asking them to show us seriously ill patients, consulting, and deciding whom to take.
Cooperation with foreign colleagues is also being actively established. In particular, we have a project with Japanese specialists that is starting just the other day. We will send each other glasses (with samples of tumor cells. - Author) for morphological consultations (that is, determining the type of tumors). Now this is done quite simply: the glass is scanned and the image is sent in any extension. We can do the same program with our regions. Because there are not enough morphologists, and everything starts with an accurate diagnosis, and the chances of treatment success primarily depend on this.
NUMBERS
About 36 thousand people a year are treated at the institutes of the National Medical Research Center of Radiology of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (the Center includes the Herzen Institute);
12 thousand people operate in the Center's units.